In my continuing mission to explore strange new tiles and seek out new bugs and glitches, I give you my video gaming experiences with Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Yesterday we looked at the general experience of using Windows 8 with a multi-monitor desktop setup. Today we’re looking specifically at the interaction between full-screen games (DOTA 2 and Portal 2 in this case) and Metro.

As you’ll see in the video, the experience is… okay. It’s important to remember, though, that heavy Desktop users — such as gamers — won’t be forced to interact with the Metro Start Screen. As long as you pin your favorite games and apps to the superbar, you won’t go near the Start Screen. Even if you do have to flip into Metro — to search for an app or file, for example — the transition isn’t that jarring, after you’ve experienced it a few times. Last night, playing games and watching videos, I didn’t see the Metro interface for quite a few hours.

Next time I’ll be looking at how the Adobe suite and Microsoft Office perform on a Windows 8 desktop PC. Given that the vast majority of desktop PCs are sold with the express intention of word processing or editing some photos or videos, I have very high expectations.

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So is metro an improvement over the start menu? I don’t really see the point in changing it round unless there is some sort of an advantage. Does it make life easier in any way?

http://www.mrseb.co.uk Sebastian Anthony

Well, it’s like the old Start menu, but… bigger! The main diff is that you go through a screen transition when searching for files/apps. That’s the kind of thing that you would get used to over time, tho’, I think.

Sapan Bhuta

hey sebastian this is more to reply with ur last video:

U know there is an extended desktop mode that is supposed to be better suited for multiple monitors, right?

http://www.mrseb.co.uk Sebastian Anthony

Heya,

How do you mean? This is ‘extended’. The other option is ‘mirrored’, where both displays show the same thing.

http://twitter.com/soap1125 Sam Brown

I believe, from using the OS for the previous three days is that it is much faster to zip around on a mouse and keyboard compared to Windows 7. However, you always need a hand on the keyboard as using it with the mouse make it a killer combo. The searching is good, but needs a lot of work. I still can’t get over how fast it ‘re-hydrates’ an app even on a normal HDD.

Anonymous

Incredible. And people are complaining about this?
I bet their heads are turning & spinning around madly. ROFL.

http://www.windows8games.info/ Windows 8 Games

Looks great. Can’t wait for beta to come out :)

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